Politicians paint murals, but protesters make genuine change and real history.

Give 'em time, and we'll have statues of automobiles. I volunteer to be first in line when it comes to bringing those symbols down.

Go Ahead and Destroy That Racist Statue (and Then the System Too), by Jillian Steinhauer (The Nation)

While politicians are painting murals in lieu of undertaking real change, protesters are making history by pulling down symbols of white supremacy.

On June 9, after a week and a half of large, daily Black Lives Matter protests in New York City that began as part of a national uprising in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he was taking action: He would name a street in each of the five boroughs after Black Lives Matter and paint the name of the movement on those roads. The decision came days after Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser received widespread attention for turning a section of 16th Street NW across from the White House into Black Lives Matter Plaza, with the phrase painted in 50-foot yellow letters on the pavement. Meanwhile, a short way down the National Mall, Democratic members of Congress, most of them white, showed up at the Capitol on June 8 wearing kente stoles. They knelt for eight minutes and 46 seconds—the same amount of time that Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck—before entering their chambers to introduce the Justice in Policing Act of 2020.

Politicians around the country are performing. They’re trying to show their constituents that they’re working on the problem of white supremacy in ways big and small. They’re using gestures to attempt to broadcast a message—but one that is ultimately hollow. As Shannon Keating put it recently in BuzzFeed News, it amounts to “performative absurdity from powerful people who’ve long avoided real accountability for causing or excusing Black suffering” ...

NAC's New Albany "Person of the Year" for 2019 is Dear Leader's pervasive, relentless Automobile Supremacy.

It’s time once again for NA Confidential to select New Albany’s "Person of the Year." As in 2018, there'll be no run-ups and time-wasting teasers, although our basic definition remains intact, as gleaned so long ago from Time.

Person of the Year (formerly Man of the Year) is an annual issue of the United States news magazine Time that features and profiles a person, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse ... has done the most to influence the events of the year."

Given the outcome of the 2019 municipal election, with the incumbent mayor Jeff Gahan winning a third consecutive term for the first time since C. Pralle Erni in the 1950s, the conventional wisdom suggests that Gahan -- currently an unchallenged, dominant figure in terms of accumulated power and authority -- would easily win the title of "Person of the Year."

Maybe in a milquetoast milieu awash in donor dollars, but all I can say to this is "Fuck a bunch o'that."

Rather, let's look at the prime beneficiary of the past eight years of pay-to-stewardship, Gahan-style. What do the following signature Gahan projects all have in common?

• River Run splash pad
• Silver Street pleasure dome
• Cannon Acres luxury doggie park
• Roadway corridor expenditures (Grant Line, Mt. Tabor, McDonald Lane, State Street)
• Summit Springs hilltop chain orgy
• Reisz Mahal opulent HQ
• Downtown grid "improvement" project

Answer: They all promote automobile centrism/supremacy at the expense of other users, whether those on foot, riding bicycles or preferring mobility options like public transportation.

They all came from Gahan with illusory promises to the contrary, which were little more than bait 'n' switch window dressing for the driver-fluffing floor show.

As traffic speeds increase, errant drivers go unpunished and sharrow symbols somehow fail to protect, Gahan has seen to it that the car stays king in Nawbany, and all other street and roadway users remain second-class citizens -- and he'll continue lying about it until the day comes when he finally goes away.

However, there is a certain irony to Gahan's love for our cars. The extended period of the Sherman Minton bridge's repairs and ensuing traffic disruptions will constitute the first serious challenges to the mayor's "Wizard of Bling" stewardship during eight years of cruise control, for which he'll be woefully unprepared and forced to cooperate with Republicans for any semblance of relief.

It will and it won't be hilarious, simultaneously.

---

Previous winners:

• 2018 ... Jeff Gahan's Money Machine
• 2017 ... #MeToo -- the NA silence breakers
• 2016 ... Chloe Allen
• 2015 ... New Albany property tax payers
• 2014 ... Heroic Non-Incentivized Downtown Developers
• 2013 ... (tie) Houndmouth and "Quality of Life"
• 2012 ... Bill "Slumlord" Allen
• 2011 ... The Sherman Minton Bridge

From Abbott and Costello to Gahan and Phipps -- that's the Great Rails to Trails Bait 'n' Switch of 2019.

I'm turning over a new leaf ... on January 1. Festivus lasts until all my grievances are aired.

In 2018, Mayor Jeff Gahan unveiled a wondrous plan for rails-to-trails to extend from just north of the former Pillsbury plant to Bedford, reminding us that when anything seems too good to be true, check your wallet.

ON THE AVENUES: "That's why I voted no," explains Scott Stewart, pausing to duck rocks feebly lobbed by Team Gahan's propaganda pygmies.

The hosannas rained down, the boot-polishers got giddy, and yet no observers in local mainstream media bothered asking the only pertinent question: Wouldn't an idea like this be far better linking the Greenway to IU Southeast? -- and besides, the city of New Albany wouldn't even be responsible for 95% of any such project perched on the outer edge of the city limits, right?

Dear Leader took credit, the sycophants became orgasmic, and apart from this blog, conventional media outlets repeated the press release talking points with nary a moment of doubt.

However, there was ample annoyance from property owners along the rights-of-way outside city limits, as well two or three oblique voices located far away from the Gahan inner circle, who kept pointing out an important fact: A component of the city's deal with Sazerac to move into Pillsbury included the provision that CSX would be re-opening the rail line running through the densely populated center of the city, which only a few years ago was a controversial facet of life downtown.

Or, precluding the only rational use of the railroad's right of way for a rails to trails scheme owing to the elegantly simple reason that it was about to be put back into use, thus averting gazes elsewhere. Neither the mayor nor a single candidate for city council thought this entire situation important enough to clarify or so much as mention during the municipal campaign, prime among them Greg Phipps, who once upon a time was outspokenly opposed to trains disrupting the serenity of his hermetic third district.

Gahan's rails-to-trails public relations stunt -- and that's all it ever was -- will be tied down amid lawsuits from property owners ... and it never had anything to do with New Albany, anyway.

Meanwhile Phipps has become a born-again defender of corporate interests at the expense of -- shall we say it aloud? -- QUALITY OF LIFE in his district.

And, notice yet again that Gahan's automobile supremacist default floats inevitably to the surface; in an ideal instance where non-automotive mobility might have been served by a downtown rails-to-trails, Gahan ends by assuring you that the roadway for your car will be smoother.

Bait and switch, thy name is Gahan, but don't look at me. I didn't re-elect the evasive connivers -- you did.

CSX has begun the process of replacing railroad components throughout New Albany, by John Boyle (No Newspaper Never Mind)

 ... Work to update the tracks and roadway intersections started in recent weeks, with crews popping up in areas throughout the city.

No exact timeline for the repairs has been set, but Mayor Jeff Gahan said the work is in full swing.

“It’s fully under construction," he said. "They want it done as soon as possible. They have removed some ties and done some road repairs."

Early phases of the work have seen crews working to tear up and replace older components of the railroads to ready them for renewed traffic. Such construction has seen the closure of sections of roadways along the East 15th Street tracks, including some that have lasted throughout this week.

Another feature of the final product will be improved intersections with the city's streets. Gahan said the city is looking to make these crossings smoother for vehicles ...

In a brazen pre-election ploy, Gahan commits city to $1,000,000 in additional fire department salaries by the year 2023.

Hmm. Does it say anywhere how we go about paying the added firefighters and first responders once the grant is used instead to beautify a street in front of an appointed board member’s business?

"It does make clear that we have to pick up 25% of the first year and then a higher percentage each of the next three, at which point we will have obligated ourselves to about a million dollars a year for additional firefighters. But that's for the next mayor to worry about," wrote the Bookseller in reply.

"November 31st is the last day to apply, according to the Gahan team,"he then added.

"Bodes well for a third term and is indicative of the team's always-keen attention to detail." 🤥

New Albany to hire additional firefighters with $2.5 million grant, by Brooke McAfee (Tom May's Cabin)

NEW ALBANY — With the help of a federal safety grant, the City of New Albany will soon have more firefighters and first responders available to serve the community.

The city recently received a $2.5 million “Staffing for Adequate Fire & Emergency Response" (SAFER) grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that will help the New Albany Fire Department to increase its staff through direct funding. New Albany is one of about 300 communities across the U.S. to receive the grant ...